Type 23 frigate HMS Norfolk had the honour of flying the flag for Britain at this year’s principal celebration of the sea – the French maritime festival at Brest.

Dressed overall, the warship – the first of 16 Duke-class vessels built for the RN, and last week named as one of the 12 Royal Navy vessels to be paid off in the next two years as part of a defence shake-up – spent six days in the Atlantic home of the French Navy for Europe’s largest seafaring event.

Brest 2004 attracted 2,000 traditional sailing vessels from 30 nations, as well as warships from a host of countries - not to mention around one million visitors.

The maritime celebration in Brittany, north-west France, is similar to the International Festival of the Sea hosted in Portsmouth – the next is in 2005 to mark the bicentennial of Trafalgar – but on an even grander scale.

This summer’s gathering in Brest had an even greater significance for the countries on either side of the Channel as the two Allied navies are celebrating 100 years of the Entente Cordiale, the military and political understanding between two nations which had been bickering and fighting for centuries.

Norfolk was open to visitors for five of the six days of the festival.

“We are very proud to have represented the Royal Navy at Brest 2004 and in particular to have played a key role in commemorating the centenary of the signing of the Entente Cordiale,” said Norfolk’s Commanding Officer, Cdr David Burns.

“Today there is strong co-operation between the French and British navies – we regularly operate alongside one another on exercises and on operations around the globe.

“Our mutual respect is born of the natural ties between mariners and a long and illustrious shared history.”

Norfolk will again be on show to the public at Navy Days in her home port of Plymouth between August 28 and 30.